


Water in the Desert

by Mireille



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-08
Updated: 2003-03-08
Packaged: 2018-08-15 21:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8072797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Chamber of Secrets alternate, in which Tom's words find a most willing ear.





	

Ginny Weasley was a tiresome girl, Tom thought, although he'd expected nothing better. Really, an innocent little eleven-year-old was bound to be tiresome, for him. He'd thought a spot of corruption might relieve the boredom, but he'd soon found that Ginny was easily controllable--too easily, in fact, to suit his tastes; at least a contest of wills would have been amusing--but not especially corruptible. 

She served her purpose, of course: killing the school chickens, leaving his message on the wall, opening the Chamber to let the basilisk roam free. She was useful. 

Useful enough to keep, useful enough to control, but not useful enough that Tom didn't wish, from time to time, that his diary had been found by someone else. 

When Ginny threw the diary into the bathroom where the entrance to the Chamber was hidden, he wasn't particularly dismayed. 

*

He's curious, this boy; Tom knew that from what Ginny wrote about him. Cautious, yes, not like the daredevils she describes some of her siblings as, but possessed of a keen desire to _know_ things. 

And so, when Percy finds the diary after Ginny has thrown it away, Tom promises to teach him things that no one else can, and he finds a willing pupil.

The knowledge is harmless, at first, innocuous spells and charms that even that fool Dumbledore couldn't object to, and Percy soaks it up like a sponge. He soaks up the attention Tom gives him, too, the praise for his intellect and determination, and Tom begins to think that a sponge is perhaps too weak of a metaphor.

Percy drinks praise like it's water offered to a man lost forty days in the desert, and no matter how much Tom gives him, he's thirsty for more. Not whining, not demanding, not begging for it, just grateful. Just soaking it up as though this is the first rain after a sixteen-year drought. 

And so, while Tom has previously thought Percy would be useful--he's proving more useful than Ginny, at least, and less annoying, as well--he now thinks Percy might be... _interesting._

The lessons change. Slowly, gradually, so as not to awaken Percy's suspicions, the magic becomes darker, and Tom works out how to phrase things so as to make Percy most willing to accept them. _Respect_ is a powerful word with Percy, and _admiration;_ and one night, when Tom tells him, _They'll love you. You can make them,_ the ink of Percy's reply is diluted with tears--silent and unacknowledged, Tom suspects, after long months getting to know Percy, but tears, just the same. 

That's when Tom knows he's won. 

*

Once Percy trusts him completely, Tom will be able to teach Percy how to lend Tom his strength, rather than simply draining it from him; he will be weakened, but not killed, not as Ginny would have been. And Percy will be willing to learn, because he wants to be powerful, wants to be important, wants to be _loved,_ and that's exactly what Tom will promise him, time and again until Percy believes it. 

He'll be even easier to control when Tom has a body. It will be a simple matter, then, to soothe the stirrings of his conscience, to murmur in Percy's ear and stroke his cheek and convince him that he should trust Tom, Tom who appreciates him, Tom who wants him. Tom who _loves_ him. 

He'll be tiresome in bed at first, Tom knows, but that will change. He'll teach the boy everything he's so desperate to learn, and even more desperate to deny. He thinks Percy will quickly learn to appreciate pain--and there's nothing Tom finds less boring than inflicting it. 

Tom won't even have to use Imperius to control him--although he knows he will, when he grows tired of Percy, just to see the shock of betrayal in the boy's eyes. But that will take a while to come, he suspects; Percy will be such an amusing plaything, ambition and desire and denial and that gnawing ache for approval combining to make him perfect for Tom's purposes.

Tom will have to teach him more Dark magic--not enough that he's a threat to Tom's power, but enough to maximize his usefulness. His consort--that's what Tom will make of him, and it will be amusing to have this boy, a Gryffindor and a Weasley (the family's reputation not seeming to have changed since Tom's day), at his side, a loyal defender.

And when the boy's family and friends come to try to bring him back from the abyss, as they will, Tom will remind them that it's all their fault. Ginny fought him. He'd have had to kill her in the end. But Percy will have come to him willingly, because no one else will have ever given him the respect and admiration that he craves so desperately. It won't have been real, of course, but Percy won't know that. 

He won't kill the other Weasleys; he'll have Percy do it, because by then, Percy will do anything to get Tom's approval. 

Tom might even feel indulgent enough that he'll wait until he's alone to laugh at how eagerly Percy will have handed over his soul.


End file.
